Mobile DRAM Manufacturers Contend at 20nm

At the very end of April this year, Samsung (LON:BC94) announced that they began producing 20nm 4Gb (512MB) low-powered DDR3 mobile DRAM. The new memory basically enabled the performance usually found on PCs, whilst managing to score a 20% drop in power consumption and having a smaller space requirement.

SK Hynix Inc (KRX:000660) recently upped the ante by presenting their own high-end solution, which enables manufacturers to use 4GB of RAM in their devices. The company claims they?ve manufactured the world?s first high density 8Gb (1GB) LPDDR3 by using their 20nm class process technology, developed simultaneously with their PC DRAM.

New chips from both manufacturers are able to work at 2133Mbps, outclassing current LPDDR3 and 1600Mbps limit. According to the SK Hynix, this world?s fastest mobile DRAM is able to process up to 8.5GBps (single channel) or 17GBps (dual channel) of data with a 32-bit I/O. As noted earlier, Hynix made it possible to stack chips up to 32Gb (4GB) in a single package, which is dramatically thinner than what is found on the market in 4Gb-based ones ? going directly after Samsung?s solution.

?With the development of this high density LPDDR3 using 20nm class, SK Hynix is now able to supply a top-performance product suitable for mobile devices to the market. Especially, this development has its significance since the Company has secured top-level competitiveness in mobile products by developing it simultaneously with PC DRAM using the same 20nm class process technology,? Senior Vice President Richard Chin, the Head of Global Sales & Marketing said.

However, Samsung has a slight advantage at this point, since SK Hynix will take their time to ramp up production until later this year, when the first high-end devices are expected to begin using their high density LPDDR3 modules. This race certainly marks one of the brighter sides of the whole industry, and we can?t wait to test out the first devices using these chips.